Lin Chong-Pin (林中斌) describes his hobby of photography as heaven.
The cross-strait affairs analyst, a professor at National Sun Yat-sen University and an adviser to the National Security Council, is well-known for his calm demeanor and his ability to predict China's internal changes and developments in cross-strait relations. His in-depth study of the People's Liberation Army also earned him recognition.
But such serious pursuits are not necessarily incompatible with soft and tender hobbies.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
He turned one of his photographs into a New Year's greeting card for friends. The card reads, "The 500-year-old Zen-inspired rock garden at the Daitokuji Temple in Kyoto offered us a precious moment of peace in an otherwise unsettling world and time ? which would have been spoiled by the faces of us mortals in the photo."
Lin said his friends appreciate the picture, which he believes shows his "inner self."
Lin's work photography began in the 1960s when, as a geology student, he had to take pictures of geological formations.
The work required being able to show the precise texture of rocks and minerals and using a hammer in the picture to demonstrate scale. Such a rigid system seems at odds with Lin's artistic side.
Lin furthered his photographic abilities by joining his company's camera club when he was a geologist in the US in the 1970s.
This Old Man!, an iconic picture Lin took in 1970, was a "lucky shot [taken] without thinking twice," Lin said. The photo, taken in a park in Tainan, earned him first prize in the human category of a competition held by the National Industrial Recreation Association in the US in 1977.
The picture demonstrated his potential to his colleagues and friends. Since then, photography has been an inseparable part of Lin's life.
"I never intended for this picture to become anything. ?But the way he sat there showed me his sadness and loneliness ? he lives in another world. ? I took the picture without thinking twice," Lin said.
His success didn't end with that one photo. Daybreak, taken in 1976 in Glacier National Park in Montana, won him first prize in a competition held by the Colorado Council of Camera Clubs.
The long time Lin spent waiting in the cold that windy morning became an unforgettable part of that picture, he said.
"The scene disappeared in an instant," he said.
Lin added that he went back to the site, as he promised he would do, 19 years later with his new bride hoping to catch the same scene. But the couple weren't able to experience the same spectacular sunrise.
According to Lin, instinct is a photographer's most valuable asset, adding that the pictures he is most satisfied with stemmed from his original thoughts.
Inspired by his favorite photographer, Ansel Adams, Lin took the Lone Pine in Yosemite National Park in 1985 while he was a student in the US.
"I was lost in time," describing his feeling while shooting the picture.
"I prefer the surreal, dream-like atmosphere of a picture," he said.
Lin, a classical music fan, found a deeper reason for his love of Adams' pictures when he learned that Adams once played the piano.
"Because there's music in those pictures," Lin said.
Lin's photographs often mimicked his personal life.
Festive fruits, taken in his brother's home in San Jose, California, in 1991, told of good things to come. Lin saw it as a sign as his wife, Alice Chang (
After he returned to Taiwan to serve in government, he photographed plants near his home that can be easily seen in mountain areas.
"That shows a rather unique family life," Lin said.
Lin said that photography fills his heart with peace, quiet and joy in the face of his busy and politicized work.
"Political issues are important, but they are temporary. Things that are politically correct now aren't necessarily politically correct 10 years from now," he said.
But photography can last forever, Lin said.
"Photography is a search inside. I find internal peace through it."
Lin doesn't bring his camera on business trips, however, "because they are not compatible.
"Taking pictures requires an attitude which can be considered anti-social. Otherwise you can't take good pictures. You have to temporarily leave this world," Lin said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching